The Big East Breakup: Effects on Competitive Balance
Date
2018-04-30Author
Noble, Jeffrey S.
Perline, Martin M.
Stoldt, G. Clayton, 1962-
Metadata
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Noble, Jeffrey; Perline, Martin M.; Stoldt, G. Clayton (2018). The Big East Breakup: Effects on Competitive Balance. The Journal of SPORT 6(1) Retrieved from https://oaks.kent.edu/sport/vol6/iss1/big-east-breakup-effects-competitive-balance
Abstract
Whereas much of the research on competitive balance deals with the addition of one or
more members to a conference and compares the competitive balance before and after the
addition(s), the authors of this study investigated competitive balance in men’s
basketball, using the extreme case of the breakup of the Big East Conference, which led
to a reconstituted Big East Conference and the formation of the American Athletic
Conference (AAC). Given that the reconstituted Big East Conference had basically
chosen its members, whereas the AAC need to scramble around to replace its departing
members, it was hypothesized that the reconstituted Big East Conference would have a
more competitively balance conference than the newly formed AAC. Using the standard
deviation, it was discovered that competition among men’s basketball teams displayed
more competitive balance in the reconstituted Big East conference than in the AAC.
Description
Open Access journal.